Thursday, December 6, 2012

I'm having another holiday giveaway this year and it's a BIG one! This year, a very wonderful and generous person has donated money for me to give away an 8x10" fully shaded commissioned painting. That's right!! An ORIGINAL painting, valued at $300, painted to your specifications that you can win for free!! How exciting is that?! Can you tell I'm excited?? =D

And the good news is, it's super easy to enter! You can enter by commenting below this post in my blog by answering one of these two questions:

1. What is your favorite painting of mine and why? You can find my complete gallery with names of all my paintings here.

2. How did you first discover my artwork?

That's it! That's all you need to do to enter my contest. But if you want to show your love for my art and support my work, I would also love it if you would share my contest on your Facebook account and/or "like" my Facebook Fan Page here. While that's not necessary to enter, I would definitely appreciate it! =)

Only comments under this post on my blog will be accepted. I have enabled anonymous posts, so even if you don't have an account you should be able to post a comment. If you leave an anonymous post, please leave your name and email address so that if you win I have a way to contact you. Also, if you have any account, please make sure that there is a way to contact you when viewing your blogger profile such as an email link. If not, please leave your email address as well.

Anyone can enter! Anyone around the world, friends, family, fellow artists....if a commissioned painting is something you would like to win, then please enter! =)

This giveaway will run through midnight EST January 3, 2013! The winner will be drawn randomly from everyone who has entered and your answers will have no influence over who the winner is.

The winner will receive an 8x10" fully shaded commissioned painting. It includes one character, a background, and animals if you so choose. I will create a sketch to your specifications, a rough colored version and then a final, finished watercolor painting. Please be familiar with my style and what I can and cannot do before entering. This process can take anywhere from 1-3 months. For more information about my commissions, you can look at my website here.

The giveaway donor wishes to remain anonymous, but if you would like to express your thanks for this awesome gift they are giving away, please feel free to do so in the comments below! I'm sure they will be reading. =)

Monday, November 26, 2012

I decided to have a big sale for Cyber
Monday in my Etsy shop!! I'm offering 20% off EVERYTHING. Just type in
coupon code CYBERMONDAY2012 upon checkout to get 20% off. That's 20% off
originals, prints, sketches, digital stamps, collage sheets, stickers
and more! This will be my biggest sale before the holidays, so don't
miss out if you have your eye on something!

Since I sort of
announced this sale last minute, I'm going to have it today and
tomorrow! So you'll have until Tuesday at midnight EST to make your
purchases. =)

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

I wanted to tell you all about an awesome new group that I'm a part of over on Facebook. The group is called "Monthly Fantasy Art Auctions" and it's a big group of very talented fantasy artists that put their work up for auction! All auctions close on the last day of the month. And we're now offering up "Buy it now" options on some of the pieces. So it's really a lot of fun! Everyone's super friendly and chatty, so come join us!

I currently have 5 different auctions up for grabs. Here are links to all of my available auctions:

I'm also offering a fun option! You can also choose to get your prints hand embellished! What I do is paint iridescent watercolor medium on each piece by accenting their clothes, hair, eyes, or other details in the piece to give them a soft shimmer. It really makes these prints so special! On the hand embellished prints, I will also sign, title and date the back of each one.

These prices are still below my retail print prices without hand embellishments! So this is really a great chance to get a fantastic deal on some one of a kind art.

All you need to do to purchase this weekly special is send me an email to nikki@aurella-art.com and let me know what you'd like to buy! I'll then send you an invoice directly through Paypal to your email address for an easy and safe purchase. Once I receive the payment, I will package them up and ship them off to you. There will be a shipping charge added to each order (though I do combine shipping so this is not a charge per print! =) ) The charges will be as follows:

8x10 Prints

United States: $3.75Canada: $4.75Everywhere Else: $9.00

5x7 Prints

United States: $3.00Canada: $3.75Everywhere Else: $6.00

ACEO Prints

United States: $2.25Canada: $3.25Everywhere Else: $4.25

**Please note that this special is not being offered through my website store or my Etsy store. Though I will happily combine shipping with any orders purchased through my Etsy shop or website store. Just message me if you have any questions. =)

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween everyone!! I wanted to tell you all about a few things of mine that are ending today. It will be the last chance to take advantage of them, so be sure not to miss out!

Halloween Print Sale

I'm having a huge Halloween print sale and it ends today! I'm offering over 40% off a select group of
Halloween prints. There are 18 different ones to choose from and you can
also get them hand embellished! Just click here to read all
the details! =)

Cassia 8x10 Print GiveawayI'm
giving away an 8x10" signed print of my Halloween witch, Cassia. The
giveaway is super easy to enter. Just click here and follow the
prompts. It takes less than 30 seconds! The giveaway runs through the end of today, October 31, 2012!

Sydney and Cheyanna Hand Embellished 8x10 Print AuctionThis month I'm also participating in a fun new auction group started by the wonderful Lisa Cree! It's the "Monthly Fantasy Art Auctions" where many different fantasy artists offer up their lovely art for auction. I have two pieces up for auction this month. Both are hand embellished 8x10 prints. You can bid on Sydney here and Cheyanna here.

Creative Design Outlet Artist of the Week

While this sale doesn't end today, I thought I would take the opportunity to let you know that I am artist of the week over at Creative Design Outlet and they're offering 20% off my tubes and images! I am the artist of the week along with Delphine Demers whose art I really admire and love so be sure to check out her things as well because they're also on sale! Check out my sale here.

Monday, October 29, 2012

We are slightly in Hurricane Sandy's path and have high wind warnings
through Tuesday. So there is a small chance we may lose power at some
point. I am keeping my stores open, so feel free to order normally. But
orders, digital file email delivery and correspondence may be delayed
depending on what happens, so I appreciate your patience! =)

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

I'm having a new giveaway! This time I'm
giving away an 8x10" signed print of my Halloween witch, Cassia. The
giveaway is super easy to enter. Just click on this link and follow the
prompts. It takes less than 30 seconds! The giveaway runs from now
through Halloween, October 31. Good luck! =)

I'm so excited to share this with you all!!
Meet, Lexy, my sexy zombie rockabilly pinup girl! I just finished this
painting today and it was just so much fun to work on. I loved working
with all the fun, bright colors, the green skin, the roses and different textures.

This is a finished result of one of my "Adoptable Images" so the
original painting is already sold. The person who "adopted" this image
got to choose the colors. She made such wonderful choices and wanted to
have the black hair with white streaks which was such an awesome idea. I
wouldn't have thought of it myself! She also chose the different
colored roses. If you're interested in one of my other images up for
adoption, check out my website here: http://www.aurella-art.com/adoptable-images.html

Lexy will be available as prints very soon! I'll be sure to keep you all updated. =)

I'm also offering a fun option! You can also choose to get your prints
hand embellished! What I do is paint iridescent watercolor medium on
each piece by accenting their clothes, hair, eyes, or other details in
the piece to give them a soft shimmer. It really makes these prints so
special! On the hand embellished prints, I will also sign, title and
date the back of each one.

These prices are still below my retail print prices without hand
embellishments! So this is really a great chance to get a fantastic deal
on some one of a kind art.

All you need to do to purchase this
special is send me an email to nikki@aurella-art.com and let me know
what you'd like to buy! Please include the following information:

1. The "number" of each print you would like. (You can find this number located on each image in the attached photo) 2. The print size that you would like. 3. Let me know if you'd like the prints embellished or regular. 4. The country that you live in so I can factor shipping costs correctly.

I'll then send you an invoice directly through Paypal to your email
address for an easy and safe purchase. Once I receive the payment, I
will package them up and ship them off to you. There will be a shipping
charge added to each order (though I do combine shipping so this is not a
charge per print! =) ) The charges will be as follows:

8x10 Prints

United States: $3.75 Canada: $4.75 Everywhere Else: $9.00

5x7 Prints

United States: $3.00 Canada: $3.75 Everywhere Else: $6.00

ACEO Prints

United States: $2.25 Canada: $3.25 Everywhere Else: $4.25

**Please note that this special is not being offered through my website
store or my Etsy store. Though I will happily combine shipping with any
orders purchased through my Etsy shop or website store. Just message me
if you have any questions. =)

I reached 1000 sales in my Etsy shop this weekend!! I have been working so long and hard towards this milestone,
but I could not have reached it without everyone's wonderful support of
my artwork. I really can't thank you all enough for everything that you do to keep my dream alive!

To thank all of you I'm going to have some awesome Halloween sales
coming up in the following weeks. So make sure to keep an eye on my
Facebook page and my Etsy shop for all of the details. And THANK YOU
again!! My fans, friends, and supporters are the BEST!! =)

Thursday, October 11, 2012

I was watching an episode of Ink Masters the other day and tattoo artist Chris Nunez said something that really resonated with me. I don't remember his exact quote, but it was something like "Faces are one line away from greatness or failure." I couldn't agree more with this.

So many artists, me included, struggle with drawing faces and I think Chris Nunez's statement is the reason why. It really only takes one line just slightly off to throw off the whole feel of the face. I think this is especially true if your art style expresses the features of a face in lines instead of only values. Which is the case in most tattoo art and also the style that I draw. The struggle with most of the artists that draw in this similar style is to look at a face that is mostly different values and break that face down into simplistic lines.

Although I feel like drawing faces has gotten easier for me over the years, I still get a little nervous when I start sketching out the face. A face can totally make or break a piece so you could spend hours and have a beautiful painting, only to have a bad face because one of your lines was slightly off. The more you draw, the easier it gets of course, but I still don't think it's ever super easy.

So I thought I would share some tips and tricks that I've learned over the years that might hopefully help you out when you're drawing a face!

Here is a recent face that I drew that I was really happy with. This is my new zombie, rockabilly, pinup girl named Lexy.

This is a 3/4 view of the face which means you can see both eyes and sides of her face, but the right side of her face and eye are more prominent and bigger than the left. It may seem pretty complex and hard to draw, but to get started the easiest thing is to break the face down to basic shapes and proportions. I'm going to show you my step by step process right over this sketch so you get an idea of an easy way to construct a face.

My first step is shown here in red. I draw a basic head shape. It's mostly just a circle at top with a pointy area for the chin at the bottom. I don't focus on any of the details of the face at this point. I just try to get the right size head and head position for the piece that I'm working on.

My next step is to draw some basic construction lines. There's a lot of different tutorials out there about the different measurements and proportions of a face. I really try not to get too fussy with exact measurements (though maybe I should!), I just try to go with what looks right. I trust my eye.

The first line I draw is a vertical halfway point of the face where the center of the nose, middle point in between the eyes and center of the mouth hits. Make sure to curve this line if you're doing a 3/4 view face. A face is 3 dimensional and not flat, so this line actually curves along almost the same curve as the outside of the face.

Next, I draw the line where the eyes will fall. This line is about midway down on the entire face shape. And again this line curves on the 3/4 view.

Lastly I draw the line where the bottom of the nose will hit and another where the center of the mouth hits. These follow the same curve as the line for the eyes that you drew.

Once you have those lines drawn, you can work more on refining the head shape as seen here in purple. You can see that I've pulled the line in a bit on her left eye and under her mouth. This gives her a pretty high cheek pone and chin. Then I also adjusted the line by her ear to give her a jaw line and an ear lobe. The face construction lines you draw should help you determine where to make the head shape adjustments.

The next step is to break the actual facial features into basic shapes. I always start with the eyes as sort of pointy oval shapes. On the 3/4 view her right eye is going to be bigger while her left eye is smaller. They are still the same shape though and should fall along that construction line that you made with the middle of the pupils hitting the line.

Then I make the nose. I always break the nose into 3 circles. A large circle for the middle of the nose and two little circles on either side. For 3/4 view, the circle on her left side will be smaller than the one on her right side. This gives her nose a dainty pointy upturned nose which I prefer on my faces. The bottom of the circles should hit the nose construction line.

Then I just draw a line for the mouth where the lips would part. This should curve along the same construction line that you drew and the left side of the line should match up with the middle of her left eye and the right side of the line should match up with the middle of her right eye. This is how you determine how wide to make the line.

I also throw on some lines for the eyebrows at this point. These follow the same curve as your construction lines. Depending on the style and look you're going for they can be different shapes and sizes. Usually a longer high arched brow is what I tend to go for because it gives the face a sexier look.

And when you get to that point, the hardest part is done! Because everything is in the right place, so next you just have to finish sketching out the features which I think is the easiest part. Getting everything in the right areas is the biggest battle.

I thicken the brows, add eyelashes, finish drawing out the nose and add an upper and lower lip. I try to work from simplistic shapes to complex shapes. So instead of drawing the eye like it's shown above from the beginning, I start with the basic pointy oval shape and add more and more detail as I go along, building up the entire face at the same rate so that it's easier to make adjustments and see mistakes from the beginning.

But I really think the key is to practice, practice practice! If you struggle with faces, try to set a goal to draw a certain amount of faces per week. Try different angles, shapes, styles, etc... until it becomes second nature to you. When I first got started there was no way I could draw a face without looking at some sort of a reference. Now, it just comes so much more naturally to me and I no longer have to look at a reference to guide me. But it's still a never ending learning experience and something I hope that I will continue to get better at!

Friday, October 5, 2012

I have been having a lot of fun lately creating quick sketches that I offer up for a "Quick Sale" on my Facebook Fan Page.
These quick sketches are so enjoyable for me because they allow me to
explore all different sorts of styles and techniques. These sketches
have all been claimed and have found homes, but I've had a lot of
questions as to whether or not I would turn these images into finished
paintings.

So I thought it would be really fun to offer these images up for "adoption"! What you do is purchase the image you would like
a finished, original watercolor painting of. Then I will turn the image
into a completed, fully shaded, 5x7" watercolor and ink painting. And
the really fun part is, you get to decide what colors I use!

My
usual starting price for a 5x7" commissioned piece is $150, but all of
these images are available at a reduced rate of only $100 each! I
really hope you enjoy this new original painting option from me. Be
sure to check back regularly because I add new sketches every week! And
if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at
nikki@aurella-art.com.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Good news! I was commissioned to work on a
full set of paintings of this cute steampunk piece, so you'll be seeing a
lot more of her! I know of a lot of you liked her, so I wanted to let
you know that she will eventually be a full, finished painting done in my normal style. I'm also doing a lineart version of
her which is what I'm working on now and also a lineart plus a
watercolor wash. It will sort of be a whole series done in all the
different styles that I offer. I think it will be really fun!

I'm also planning on opening a section of my website called "Adoptables"
or something similar where I will have all my Quick Sketches. I've done
17 of them at this point! And I have gotten a lot of questions as to
whether they will become finished paintings at some point. So what I was
thinking of doing is placing all these sketches up on my website where
you can "Adopt" one of the images and commission me to complete a
finished painting done in my usual style! The best part is, I think I
will be able to offer these original paintings at a slightly reduced
rate because a lot of the legwork is already done for the piece at that
point. I'll be sure to keep you all up to date on how this project
evolves! I would also love to hear your feedback on this project and if
it's something you would be interested in seeing from me. =)

Friday, September 28, 2012

This was something that I woke up thinking about, so I thought I would take a moment and get my thoughts out.

I saw this amazing gallery of artwork on my Yahoo homepage this morning displaying the work of artist, Dirk Dzimirsky. His work is truly breathtaking and fools the eye into think it's looking at a photograph. You can visit and see all his work on his website here.

Breath, 2010 - Charcoal Drawing on Canvas by Dirk Dzimirsky

I started to think about how difficult it must be to create these images. And honestly when I see incredible artwork like this, I start to feel pretty crappy about my work. I'm sure it happens to most artists when we compare our work to someone else. We start to see all the flaws in our work and get this helpless feeling like we can never be "that" good. In a way it's a good thing as it constantly makes me strive to be better and pushes me further.

But I do think it's important to take a step back and tell yourself you are doing a great job and what you create -is- amazing. So I started thinking about stylized realism because that's what I always try to aim for in my work. And once I started to think about stylized realism, I began to realize how difficult that style is and what talent it takes to create it!

Think about it...with stylized realism you have no reference to go from. Sure you can accumulate references for your work, and I typically do for my pieces, but in the end they don't end up looking anything like that photographic reference. Because artists who create stylized realism look at a picture of a tree and then magically translate that into their own stylized version of a tree.

I think that my Cheyanna piece is a perfect example of what I'm trying to explain:

Cheyanna - Watercolor and Ink by Nikki Burnette

I studied photographic references for all aspects of this painting: the pose of the fairy, the foxes, mushrooms, trees, leaves, etc... But have you ever seen anything in nature that looks exactly like the different elements in this painting? I think if you walked through the forest and saw this exact scene in nature, you would think you were transported to a magical land. And I guess if you think that, then I've done my job correctly!

I think with stylized realism, it is all about taking the realistic shape, form, value, etc... and simplifying it. You have to take that super complex leaf with all its veins and textures and figure out how to simplify it, yet still make it look and "read" as a leaf. And with my particular style, I also have to translate 3 dimensional form into 2 dimensional linework which adds a whole different aspect of difficulty to it. For instance, on the foxes...they don't really have lines on their bodies anywhere! But I had to figure out where to add lines so that it made sense for my style and still came across as a fox.

Now I'm not trying to say that stylized realism is more difficult or better than extreme realism or vice versa. I'm just saying that I realized there are some extremely difficult aspects to creating a stylized piece that I had never really thought of before. Our minds have to create the image that we see by changing details yet keep it similar enough so that people know "that's a fox" or "that's a leaf." It really is an interesting thing and takes a lot of talent! So if you're a stylized realism artist like myself and are feeling down about your work, just think about that for a moment. All artists have a talent that is uniquely our own and create a world through our art for others to enjoy.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

I wanted to let you all know about a new giveaway I'm having this week! This giveaway runs from today until next Thursday, October 4th. I'm giving away a signed 8x10" print of my witch Willow. Willow is painted in beautiful shades of autumn: gold, brown, red and orange. This print is truly stunning and it's super enter the giveaway. It only takes a few seconds. Just visit this link for your chance to win. Good luck!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I thought I would share the finished versions
of some of my quick sale sketches! These were sketches that I put up for
a quick sale. The first person to claim the piece got to decide how or
if I would finish it. They could leave it as is, have
me add pen linework or have me add pen linework with a watercolor wash
where they got to choose the colors. I thought it was really fun and I
will be doing a lot more in the future! This is one of the paintings
that I just finished up. I hope you enjoy her. =)

And don't
forget that you can get your very own piece painted in this style for a
very reasonable price! I just updated my commission information and
added all different sorts of options for you to choose from. I'm looking
to take on some more commissions, so I'd love for you to check out all
my info here.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Hi everyone! I have a few pieces that I've been working on lately that I wanted to share with you.

This first piece is a commissioned painting and it's part
of my element witch series. My previous painting "Serafina &
Firenze" was the fire witch and this is the water witch! I have completed
the witch part of the sketch, but I still need to work on her familiar.
Each witch will have a familiar companion that represents their
element. I hope you all enjoy the water witch and I will continue to
share the steps as I work on this painting. If you're interested in your own commissioned painting, I have all sorts of different style options and price points! You can see all my options here.

I've also been doing more quick sketches and they've all been Halloween themed! I think it's the cold, fresh air that gets me in the mood to draw witches and anything Halloween related. Here are two sketches that I drew.

What I did with these sketches is I offered them up for sale on my Facebook Page as a "Quick Sale - You Choose." The first person to claim the pieces got to choose how I finished them! They both chose to finish these pieces with pen linework and a watercolor wash. I've added the pen linework and will be painting them soon!

I also finished -another- Halloween witch sketch yesterday! And offered it up for sale on my Facebook page in the same manner. The person that won the sketch also decided to finish it with pen linework and a watercolor wash. So I'm excited to finish this piece up too!

I plan on offering up more sketches as a "Quick Sale - You Choose" where you decide how you'd like me to finish the piece. If you're interested in purchasing one, make sure to keep an eye on my Facebook Fan page here.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I wanted to let you all know about some new releases from my licensing companies! First, I have a new cross stitch release from Heaven and Earth Designs featuring my steampunk piece: Copper. I know a lot of you mentioned you were excited about a new steampunk cross stitch pattern coming out, so I definitely wanted to share that with you! You can find her on the Heaven and Earth Design website here.

Next, I have new tube releases from Creative Design Outlet to share with you! They released three of my Halloween witch pieces as tubes right in time for some Halloween tag creation! You can purchase them separately or as a set of three. The set includes: Serafina & Firenze, Kenda and Willow.

I also wanted to share an awesome tag that Mona made for me! It features my Halloween witch image, Zoe. She also made a really great tutorial that explains how she made the tag from start to finish! You can check out her tutorial here.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Commissions are currently OPEN! Please visit this link or click the picture below to see all my available options and current price list. Make sure to maximize the image!

*************************************

Looking for a fantasy art commission? Well, I'm happy to
announce that I have completely overhauled my commission information and I now
offer all different styles, sizes and price points! I'm hoping that my new
commission format will allow me to paint or sketch the ideas that have been
swimming around in your head for the price that's just right for you!

So please contact me if you're interested in a fantasy art
commission! I would love to draw that fairy, witch, mermaid, vampire, steampunk
girl, original character or role playing game character that you've been
thinking about and want to put on paper! You can choose a sketch, line art, line art
with watercolor wash or a fully shaded watercolor painting. They come in all
different sizes with lots of different options and upgrades starting at just
$25!

I plan on taking on 5 clients at any one time. Once the 5
spots are filled up, I will close commissions for a bit until I get caught up
and then I will reopen a spot as there's room.

Just have a look overall the information and example pictures below and please contact me if
you're interested in commissioning me or have any questions at
nikki@aurella-art.com. Thank you for
your interest!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

I am having another giveaway on my Facebook Page! This time I'm giving away 2 8x10" signed
Angelique prints. One to the winner of the giveaway and one to a
referrer. So make sure to enter the giveaway and then share the giveaway
when prompted for a 2nd chance to win! This giveaway will run for a
week! Good luck. =)

All you need to do to purchase this weekly special is send me an email
to nikki@aurella-art.com and let me know what you'd like to buy! I'll
then send you an invoice directly through Paypal to your email address
for an easy and safe purchase. Once I receive the payment, I will
package them up and ship them off to you. There will be a shipping
charge added to each order (though I do combine shipping so this is not a
charge per print! =) ) The charges will be as follows:

8x10 Prints

United States: $3.75 Canada: $4.75 Everywhere Else: $9.00

5x7 Prints

United States: $3.00 Canada: $3.75 Everywhere Else: $6.00

ACEO Prints

United States: $2.25 Canada: $3.25 Everywhere Else: $4.25

**Please note that this special is not being offered through my website
store or my Etsy store. Though I will happily combine shipping with any
orders purchased through my Etsy shop or website store. Just message me
if you have any questions. =)

Morning everyone! I thought that it might be fun to start a series on my blog called "On the Drawing Board" where I post frequent pictures of what I'm working on. I do this on my Facebook Fan Page so that everyone can see what I'm working on and how it's evolving. But I know a lot of you don't use Facebook, so I thought I might try it on my blog as well!

I'm
working on a new steampunk sketch today. I'm all done sketching her.
Next, I'm going to ink over my sketch lines and add a watercolor wash to
the entire piece. I'm working on this piece as an example for my new
commission styles! This steampunk girl will be available for sale once
I'm finished with her. =) Hope you all enjoy her!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I wanted to share with you all a brief watercolor painting tutorial of my new steampunk painting, Copper. Well, I say tutorial for lack of better words! I guess you could call it more of a walk through of my entire painting process. I hope you enjoy it and maybe even pick up a few tricks along the way!

If you're interested in purchasing the original of Copper, she is available for sale in my Etsy shop here.

This was my initial sketch of Copper. I sketch with plain old pencil and paper. I actually just use a cheap mechanical pencil with .05 lead I believe. And my favorite sketch pad that I've found I bought at Walgreens for only $4! I was really happy with the way the sketch turned out. I liked the shift in body weight that I was able to achieve and her cute little hiked left shoulder. I also liked her face and hair style. But I didn't feel like the composition was balanced. There was too much negative space on the left side. So I went back to work on it.

Usually when I don't like a sketch, I take it into Photoshop and play with it a bit. For me, this is the quickest and easiest way to play around with the composition to see what works. What I did to fill up the space on the left side was first to elongate her top hat. Then I added a draped pocket watch around her right arm. I also found some awesome free gear Photoshop shapes online that I added to the piece. My idea was to make these gears part of the background. After I came up with this composition, I was much happier with it and decided to move onto the next step.

My next step is to create all the clean linework in Photoshop using the Pen Tool. I use this linework for a variety of different reasons including rubber stamps, coloring pages and to print off on my final watercolor paper. I create the lines in Photoshop because it's the best way I've found to "clean up" my messy sketch lines and get them super smooth.

More linework in Photoshop.

Here, I have created her clothes with the pen tool. I also reworked the rough sketch of the pocket watch so that the draping made more sense.

And here is the finished linework! Those chain links took forever!

Next, I always work out a rough color scheme in Photoshop using the paint bucket tool. I just drop in rough color. I like to get an overall sense of what colors to use and if it's all going to be cohesive. Sometimes I make changes as I'm painting, but I usually stick to this initial idea fairly closely.

Here, I've printed the linework very faintly onto my watercolor paper. But I reink all the lines by hand before I can start painting. For my work, I just prefer to ink everything instead of painting it with no inked lines. I think the final piece turns out cleaner and sharper looking. I ink my pieces with a dip pen and brown waterproof ink. It does take a steady hand, but you would be surprised at how some shaky lines get easily hidden once everything's painted. I always ink the face first, because I feel that is the hardest part to hide mistakes. Once the face is finished and looks good, I move onto the rest of the painting. I have been able to successfully cover up major mistakes before, but never on the face. So best to get that out of the way first so that you don't save it for last, mess it up, and then have to redo the whole thing. One tip is to use pen cleaner to lift out major splashes. It doesn't get rid of it completely, but it does lighten it considerably making it easier to cover up with watercolor.

This is always my favorite part. Copper is part of my Portrait Series and in this series I always create a textured background using salt. For this particular background, I used tan, brown, red and dark brown colors to create a really grungy, steampunky (yes it's a word!) background. I sort of blended together the tan and medium brown colors, then dropped in really saturated colors of dark brown and red. Then I sprinkled plain old table salt on top to create the texture. I was so happy with the way it turned out.

Next, I decided to take a light brown color and paint in the gears. I was afraid of losing the lines of the intricate gears and not being able to salvage them, so I wanted to make sure that they stood out enough for me to be able to work on them later. I didn't want to get them too dark though before I worked on the character a bit. So I left them a lighter color knowing that I would finish them off later. Then I started working on her clothes by painting the base colors. For the most part, I use wet on dry watercolor techniques. And build up layer after layer. Once the colors are as vivid as I would like, I then blend everything together with a soft, wet brush.

Here you can see that I built up the layers of the brighter orange/red color so that it's nice and vivid. Then I blended those layers all together so there weren't any hard edges. Then I started on the darker crimson red color. I typically work one color at a time.

The darker red color is now finished and blended. I love creating folds in skirts. They're one of my favorite things to paint!

In this picture, I finished all of the gold/tan parts of her clothing and blended everything together. I also laid down the base color for the brown and leather parts of her outfit.

Here the brown parts are finished! I tend to use the types of watercolor paints that have some granulation in them. I'm not sure what the technical term for those are, but I use them for creating leather. It makes them nice and splotchy and gives them an awesome texture. Now that I had the darkest parts of the character all finished, I could go back to the gears. I usually finish the background first before moving onto the foreground. I do this because it's easier to fix any watercolor splashes on the foreground when it's not painted. You can easily lift them off or cover them up with more paint once you work on the character. But sometimes, I have to work in a back and forth method in regards to the background and foreground so that they are well balanced. This was the case with the gears. I wanted them to stand out, but not overwhelm the character. So that's why I finished the character first before I finished them up.

And here's the finished painting! I worked on her skin tone. I did have some problems with the skin tone. I mentioned before that I use a wet on dry technique most of the time and blend everything at the end. But for some reason, the lighter colors don't like to blend as easily and can sometimes turn blotchy. This is a very nerve wracking time for this to happen, right at the end of the painting! But after I complained to my husband for awhile about ruining the painting, I set back to work to fix it. I added a lot of red and pink tones and lots of water with a smooth brush. This really helped with the splotchy skin tone and in the end I was happy with how it looked! I also painted the pocket watch in a really bright copper tone so that it stood out from the background.

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About Me

Hello! My name is Nikki Burnette and I am a fantasy artist. I paint all sorts of fantastical creatures in watercolor. Fantasy art is where my heart lies. I love being able to escape the reality of our world for even just a few hours and enter a new fantasy realm where witches play tricks on Halloween Night, fairies fly around the sweet smelling rosebuds, and mermaids swim gracefully through the water with their dolphin friends. I sell my original paintings as well as a wide range of different products that I create myself in my studio. Thanks for stopping by!